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Up for sale the "World's First TV Weathermen" Clint Youle Hand Signed TLS Dated 1954 on NBC Letterhead.
ES-3981D
Weather presenters are a special
breed, often adored for their catchphrases (see, for example, Al Roker’s
“Here’s what’s happening in your neck of the woods”) and their hilarious on-air mishaps. On this day 63 years ago, TIME profiled one of
the world’s very first TV weathermen, Clint Youle. Though he spent much of his
life as a beloved weather icon, he “got into television almost by accident,” as
the 1951 article points out. He got his start as a radio newswriter, but
transitioned to television in 1949 when Chicago station WNBQ was seeking
someone to do on-air forecasts. He’d taken a three-month meteorology course in
the Army — and that was enough to land him the gig. As TIME reported, he soon
developed a shtick that gained him quite a following: By 1951 — only a few
years after Youle got the job — the gig had grown to two local weather shows
and a 45-second spot twice a week on John Cameron Swayze’s network telecast. By
then, Youle’s salary had spiked to $40,000 a year. In 1999, Youle died at age
83. The New York Times credited him as the very first person
to present the weather on a national television news program. The Daily
Show even did a bit to honor him, in which Jon
Stewart attempted to maneuver his way around a weather map. Turns out it’s
harder than it looks.
